Friday, January 13, 2006

Born and bred to hate Chickenhawks

By Born-a-Tiger

Since it's 9:30 and I'm at work and have nothing to do, I thought I'd share my Mizzou story... so here's a little about Shawn's love of the black and gold and his incessant hatred for all things crimson and blue (by the way, way to steal your colors from Harvard and Yale. morons):

1) We'll start at the beginning. My grandma went to MU. My great-uncle went to MU. My dad and two of my uncles went to MU. It's kind of in the blood.2) Six-year old Shawn is picked up from grandpa's house by Dad (Don) on a beautiful March day. Mom being gone, Dad is in charge of dinner. As we pull into the driveway, Dad hands me a bag of oranges. We go inside. Dad turns on the TV and puts it on CBS. I ask what's for dinner. He says I'm holding it. When I ask why we're eating oranges (I was six and didn't particularly like them), Dad says, "Because the MU basketball team is playing Syracuse tonight in the NCAA tournament, and they're the ORangemen, so we hate them." Unfortunately, Rony Seikaly and Derrick Coleman prove too much for the heroic Tigers to handle.3) 1990-91 season: Missouri has the finest team in the land. Doug Smith is an unstoppable beast, and a lefty from KC—Anthony Peeler—rains 3s upon the Tigers' helpless opponents. Missori wins the Big 8 tourney, crushing a Chickenhawks team that later would go to the Final Four along the way. After that game, I hear Rock... Chalk... Chickenhawk... Screw kU for the first time. Thanks, Dad. Unfortunately, because of violations by insidious former assistant Rich Daly, Missouri is precluded from NCAA tournament play. Then my dad and I have to watch the obviously inferior Chickenhawks race through the tourney. Dammit!4) 1993-94 season: I'm listening in Orscheln Farm and Home when Missouri beats Coppin State or some equally crappy schoool on a last second 3 by Lamont Frazier. Little did I know it would trigger a 14-0 Big 8 season, followed by an Elite 8 title run. That included two dominant victories against the hated Chickenhawks.5) 1994-95: Tyus Edney will be condemned to the 9th circle of hell for beating Missouri on that shot. As will the CBS people who put it in their tourney highlights, and Jason Sutherland for forgetting how to play defense for those cursed 4.8 seconds. By the way, UCLA crushes every other team they play. Missouri is the only school that gives them a REAL contest. Dammit.6) 1996-97: kU, seemingly on it's way to an undefeated season, is defeated in Columbia by one of the worst teams of the Norm Stewart era in 2 OTs. Hahahahahahaha. That March, Mom Reid becomes very angry when, on a routine trip to K Mart, my dad and I watch the entire kU-Arizona game as Arizona exposes the Chickenhawks for the soft, overrated prima donnas they are. Much laughter ensues, until we get to the car. My six-year-old sister gets her first taste of chickenhawk hatred. It sticks.7) 1998-99: Keyon Dooling dunks over a reeling, scared, running away chickenhawk named Ashante Johnson. Ridiculously, the moronic ref calls an offensive foul against Dooling. kU takes a big lead while Dooling sits, and MU is unable to recover. I curse in front of my father for the first time (f-ing chickenhawks). He just looks at me and smiles.8) My college era: this already has been covered, so I'll just recap. Hinrich, Miles, Padgett. Things that haven't been covered: Travon Bryant's follow-dunk over All-American Nick Collison in the Big 12 Tournament, followed by a fist pump and a "Bitch." at a now-sprawled-on-the-ground Collison; Cheering violently for Syracuse (even though I've hated them since that first game) in the NCAA title game, and laughing hysterically when kU loses. Cursing in front of my mom for the first time after seeing MU get run by kU in the Big 12 tourney with their NCAA hopes on the line. Shouting, "Go to hell, J.R. Giddens, you cocky bastard." Seeing MU beat kU in the last game I watched in person as a student. Finally, some smiles.

A few closing thoughts... when my dad found out I was dating a girl from Kansas City, his first question was: "They're not kU fans, are they?"... the first time my dad went to said girlfriend's house and saw an MU mailbox proudly adorning the driveway, he said, "This is my kind of place." Nothing can describe the pride I feel when I hear my sister expound on her hatred of the stinking chickenhawks. And finally... I'm Tiger born and Tiger bred, and when I die, I'll be Tiger dead.